


Ngā Waeroa

by tauhou



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Blended family, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Developing Relationship, Drabble Collection, F/F, Feelings, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Future Fic, Hands, Hangover, Honeymoon, Hospitals, I Love You, Morning Kisses, Morning Sex, References to Addiction, References to Teen Pregnancy, Sex, Soup, Step-parents, Surgery recovery, Tea, Washing up, Watching Someone Sleep, Wordcount: 100, coming home, fluff and nonsense, hot water bottles, rainy day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 15:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22498462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tauhou/pseuds/tauhou
Summary: These little ideas turn up like mosquitoes when I'm trying (and failing) to write something else.  So I decided to catch them and stuff them into drabbles to get them out of my head.  They're not much each, but maybe folk will find something they like in here.  I've got a handful I'll be putting up to start, and I guess I'll add more as they come along.CW: It's most likely a very mixed bag, happy, sad, nsfw, fluff, family, major character death, and so on.  I've rated it at the highest rating of any individual work, on the grounds that that makes it easiest for readers to filter out content they're not ok with.  But, for those who want to just read chapters of particular ratings, I'll put a rating (and any archive warnings) in the Chapter Title of each one so they can skip as suits.  Additional tags will be in the notes.
Relationships: Charity Dingle/Vanessa Woodfield
Comments: 26
Kudos: 120





	1. [T] Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Mornings, I love you.

Charity wakes to alert blue eyes gazing at her over the duvet.

"Morning sleepyhead." her girlfriend whispers softly.

"Mmmmm, you're the dopey one staring at me instead of getting up."

"Yeah, well..., maybe I like the view."

Charity reaches out, grinning. "Come 'ere."

Vanessa rolls into her arms, her body warm, her kiss sweet, hands nimble. "I have to go." She moves to leave.

"Ness, wait." She pauses, her smile rising, "You know, I really, really,..."

Vanessa smiles back, "Stupidly..."

"And completely love you."

Vanessa shakes her head. "You'll make me late for work."

"As often as I can, babe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cause, honestly, it was the best 'I love you' scene I've ever had the ridiculous good luck to witness.


	2. [M] Rhona

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Oblique References to Addiction
> 
> Rhona POV.

It hurts more than she thought it would, watching them together. Vanessa's hand on Charity's hip, Charity's arm round Vanessa's shoulders, their kisses fluid, fluent.

She knows how Vanessa feels, how she responds when provoked. How generous she can be. How warm.

For all that she traded it pretty cheap.

She can tell Charity doesn't. Even if that truth sticks in her throat, making her mouth dry.

No, Charity loves it. Treasures it. Toys with it, amazed, entranced. In love.

And she wishes she didn't know it so cleanly. Know Charity so well now because of it.

But she does.


	3. [T] Pregnant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: References to Teenage Pregnancy, Step-parents

Sarah walks around the corner of the clinic and out of sight, hand in hand with that useless boy of hers. Charity's fingers beat a testy rhythm on the steering wheel. Lost in thought, she sighs when Vanessa's hand slides onto her thigh. "Ever glad you can't get me pregnant, babe."

Vanessa's frown deepens. "I should think so, we've got enough already, don't we?"

The bark of Charity's laugh breaks through the tension. "Well... You gave me one more at least."

Vanessa tilts her head, searching her wife's face. "I did?"

"Yeah." she answers, tangling their fingers, and smiling. "Johnny."


	4. [G] Marigolds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Angst, washing up.
> 
> Set during the November break up.

It's the washing up brush that does it.

She's been holding it together, for the kids. For herself. For days.

She's had to.

But there's something about tepid dishwater after 10pm that just makes the whole struggle seem so pointless. Hoping Vanessa might overlook the endless fuckups that comprise her life, and come back.

The brush is so insignificant, Vanessa probably forgot to take it with her. This little bit of cheerful domesticity — helps. Makes doing the dishes less boring. Fun, like what Vanessa brings to flimmin everything.

Now, all she's got is a washing up brush.

And Vanessa's gone.


	5. [T] Will You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Adoption

The blare of the truck's horn and the judder of the car hitting the berm are still roaring through her mind when she hears Charity's voice.

"I want you to adopt Noah." She's staring out the windshield into the rain and dark, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

"Charity ... I" she hates how unsure she sounds. She loves Noah, she does. But it's not that simple.

"I just. I don't want him with anyone else if I'm ... gone." She turns to her wife, her face slowly crumpling.

She doesn't need to think, not anymore. "Of course, Charity. I will."


	6. [T] Girlfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Fluff

She skirts round the car, jogging to join Charity on the pavement. Even straight from the Woolpack, she looks stunning; this _girlfriend_ of hers. She grins in spite of herself, in spite of Charity's wary eyes, and sets off for the restaurant.

It's a surprise when her hand is caught, long, warm fingers tangling her own.

This is entirely surreal - walking past shops holding a beautiful woman's hand. As natural as breathing, as unexpected and brilliant as a glass of starlight.

She lets herself stare briefly. Charity catches her looking, but just smiles softly, and tugs her a little closer.


	7. [T] Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Coming home, Fluff.

It's a filthy night. The punters at the Woolpack were right bitchy and boring from when the rain started mid-afternoon and she's _done_.

She shrugs off her coat, chucking it at a hook, shoves off her boots - soaked from the walk home.

Vanessa's stood in the kitchen packing the boys' lunches for kindy, her ponytail catching the light.

Charity quietly crosses the space, wrapping her arms and body around her wife, exploiting her flustered surprise to kiss her; breathe in the smell of her hair, her skin.

"Hi babe." she says to warm lips and sparkling blue eyes. "I'm home."


	8. [T] Ryan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Hangovers

_Marlon's fry up? Yes please. <3_

She grins at Vanessa's txt. Hangover lunch for hungover girlfriend, coming up.

Her eyes linger on the bar where she'd been sat with Ryan last night. Drunk, singing, flimmin annoying - like family. Her family.

For a second, she sees it all crystal clear: another life. Just her, and Ryan and Vanessa from the beginning. She'd have made it with Vanessa. They could have done anything. Built a home. A life. Done it right.

Rhona's laughing as Vanessa follows her inside.

Charity sighs, and turns to get a couple of glasses out of the chiller.


	9. [M] Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Morning Sex, Hands

It's early and she's half-asleep, so she doesn't quite catch what Vanessa's saying. She knows that look though: sharp smile, pure mischief, and she knows where it leads.

Pulls her back to bed with a smirk and a smart comment. Her dressing gown lasts a few seconds, pushed neatly off her shoulders. Fingertips trail over the exposed skin, and they're on again.

She's got such knowing hands this Vanessa. Far too knowing for someone with such an innocent face.

It's unnerving.

And surprisingly hot.

But so much more so, because she knows it so well, and no one else does.


	10. [T] Maps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Developing Relationship, Tea.

Emotions can be heavy. It's a quirk of physics that they don't register on any scale; but can flatten you anyhow. All she's flimmin done is turn up with two cups of tea and a smile for her in the morning light. But there's everything in that look. A future. A past. Them together.

They barely know each other. Yet, here she lies, her most subtle secrets laid out like a map. A moment's perspective down through the clouds.

And having seen it, she can't forget. Cannot now start to believe. How good they are for each other. How right.


	11. [T] Anything but

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Cancer
> 
> Additional tags: Chemotherapy, Future Fic

Vanessa pulls her hair into a ponytail. It's lasted so well, but she can't ignore it anymore; the faint silhouette of her skull through her thinning hair.

Charity catches her eye and moves up behind her, gazing at her in the mirror.

Vanessa's laugh is more of a sigh. "This is where you tell me how ... hot I am."

Charity's arms slide carefully around her, their hands catching together, drawing close. Vanessa eases back into Charity's solid warmth.

Quietly, her nose resting against the soft skin just behind Vanessa's ear, she says, "I've never known you be anything but, babe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck cancer.


	12. [M] Bored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Developing Relationship

"Couple of weeks, I'll be bored of ya." The words spill out of her mouth, running to join her other regrets. She knows bloody well she's barely scratched the surface of how interesting Vanessa is. Or could be; to her.

She serves Jimmy a pint with a smile and holds her nerve all the way to the bathroom upstairs.

The cold glass of the mirror helps her push back the hot rage at her own stupidity. And the memory of Vanessa's hands buried in her hair, her lips urgent, the fit of their bodies, that cheeky glint in her eye.


	13. [T] Like that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Cancer
> 
> Additional tags: Weak Tea, Blended Family

The kettle clicks off, full of boiling water.

Noah turns, leaning against the counter, resting his chin on his hands as his mum pours water into first her mug, then Vanessa's. He counts: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three... milk in Vanessa's, then hers, she's got the teaspoon out already -- so it's *that* fast Vanessa's teabag comes out. Blimey.

He still doesn't know what's gone wrong, but he's worked out how Vanessa takes her tea. Now maybe she'll stop smiling bravely and saying thank you, and leaving it half-drunk on the coffee table.

It might not be much. But it's _something_.


	14. [T] All Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Hospitals

For a moment, it all goes away. The medical gear, the pain, the low-grade rumbling fear. Even the hospital smells: disinfectant and soup.

Replaced by Charity. Her pointlessly expensive shampoo, the faint musk of her white jacket, the wear on the sleeves just starting to show. The unmistakable smell of her makeup, for all that she doesn't hardly need it.

It's just a brief kiss, almost perfunctory. But it catches her meandering mind better than all the practiced seduction from early on.

She'd thought it was the sex, back then.

Now she wonders if it were just Charity all along.


	15. [G] Circuit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Blended family; rainy day.

It's late afternoon when she collapses onto the sofa.

Vanessa has had the boys running a circuit for the last hour, fighting past fatigue to get them to build it, then timing how fast they could go round.

The noise had driven the teenagers to their rooms and her outside into the chill of a grey spring day, a cup of tea for her hands which were itching for a long-forgotten cigarette.

Johnny's exhausted as he crawls onto the sofa, head falling onto her thigh.

He's sweet this kid, she thinks, stroking his soft hair, turning back to her magazine.


	16. [M] Look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Developing relationship

She trails her fingers over Charity's back where it's not covered by the sheets; the familiarity of the soft skin and curves still bewilderingly new. Her mind drifts, lazily picking through memories of last night.

Charity opens her eyes, and looks Vanessa over, a knowing smile curling her lips. "Alright?" her voice is low, cracked with early morning disuse.

Vanessa swallows and smiles, and stares back. There's a softness in Charity's expression that should be fleeting but it stays put.

If she didn't know better, she'd say it was tenderness. If she didn't know _better_ , she'd say she looks ... happy.


	17. [T] Hot water bottle and soup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Chemotherapy
> 
> Additional tags: hot water bottles, soup

"Here you go, one hot water bottle, as ordered."

"Ta." Vanessa takes it and pulls it between the blankets and a dog-eared book.

"You alright?" Charity asks, settling on her side of the bed.

Vanessa nods quickly. "Yeah."

Charity looks at her steadily, eyebrows rising.

"Oh, fine. All my joints ache and this book weighs like a ton of farm machinery." She reaches for Charity's hand. "I'm tired. But the soup was ... edible."

"That's good, yeah?" Charity's smile meanders, searching.

"Yes. And you're here." she adds softly. "That helps."

Charity's grin floods her face, warm, relieved, cocky. "'Course it does."


	18. [T] Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Hospitals
> 
> Additional tags: Watching Someone Sleep, Hospitals.

"And then Bob,..." her hands fall into her lap as she realises Vanessa's drifted off. Lets herself take a slow breath in and out.

It's good, that she's sleeping - she's been awake too often these last nights. An she looks so peaceful, with her head sunk into the pillow. Small.

Charity grimaces. She wants to shift that flimming oxygen tube off of her face. It's there for good reason. Probably. But it looks wrong; mechanical and hard, lying on that soft skin that Charity knows so well.

She rubs her face with her hands.

Sits and watches her love sleep.


	19. [M] Casual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Developing Relationship, Sex.

It's casual, with Charity. She gets that. She's not sure there's anything else _to_ get – this is Charity after all, bed-hopping an 'bored of you' an all.

She can do casual. Her love-life's nothing but; looking back.

Although...

There's nothing casual about how her skin reacts as Charity's fingers trace across it. There's nothing casual about the flip her stomach does when Charity reaches for her. Nothing _casual_ about Charity's fingers moving inside her; or how she comes hardest when Charity's kissing her.

Nothing casual about how she feels seeing Charity's dawning smile across the bar.

Nothing casual at all.


	20. [T] You up?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Developing Relationship
> 
> Set in Jan 2018, possibly sometime around Charity's birthday.

She feels like hell. Debbie's been avoiding her texts all day, Chas had strong-armed her into a double shift, last call had taken flimmin _forever_. Her feet ache, an she just wants her bed.

Wishes it were a warm one.

Passing the cellar door, she pauses.

"You up?" It's absurdly late, but she fires off the text anyway.

"Why? Thinking of coming over?" Vanessa's reply arrives just as she's starting upstairs.

Barely two minutes later, she's grinning up at Vanessa from the cold outside Tug Ghyll.

An Vanessa's smiling down at her, haloed in the light from her bedroom window.


	21. [T] Does anyone?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Developing Relationship, Feelings

"Does anyone?"

It were just a throwaway comment, but it's popped back into her mind now as she's digging a particularly stubborn raisin out of the corner of Johnny's lunchbox.

Does anyone ... _like_ Charity Dingle?

She's not alone in sleeping with her, hardly. But she can't think of anyone who seems to actually like her.

After all, why would they? She's vicious, an careless, an feckless, and ... gorgeous, an gentle, and wickedly funny.

The raisin comes free and she walks over and drops it in the bin and sighs.

And what if _she_ likes her? Just a bit.

What then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These last two bits may have been brought to you by a rewatch.


	22. [M] Honeymoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Feelings, Honeymoon.

_Wife._

It's an impossible word for this impossibly gorgeous person poised above her. Her breath hot on her lips, hips solid, moving under her hands. Her smile warm.

It makes no sense that she's here, even though Charity knows they're married now. Can remember Vanessa saying I Do. And I Love You. Knows there's rings and paperwork, a life they've built together.

There's a scam in here somewhere. There must be. She'll play it out as long as she can. Pray that she doesn't loose this. She runs her hands low on Vanessa's back, pulls her closer.

Not just yet.


	23. [M] Chandeliers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: surgery recovery, fluff and nonsense

"Hey, look at you, lying on your side."

Vanessa sags into the bed. "Amazing, in'it? Me lying down, an only three weeks after surgery. All witness, Super Vanessa's magical flimmin healing powers."

"Well, I know it's not like you're swingin from the chandeliers, babe, but..."

Vanessa turns, cutting her off with a flustered glare. "Oh please, don't bring that night up again."

"Ok." Charity settles onto the bed, looking thoughtful. "But it _were_ pretty good." Charity winks, slowly drawing out Vanessa's begrudging smile in return.

"Yeah." She says, biting her lip as a blush rises across her cheeks. "It were."


	24. [T] Moisturiser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Obadiah Dingle. 'nuff said.

She doesn't notice him come in the bedroom, she's lost in remembering her mum's fingers tracing circles as she put her moisturiser on. The lid's dusty now.

His words flick out, rough, like his hand on her wrist.

"Put that DOWN _NOW_."

She sees the crack appear in the glass jar as it hits the bedside table, jolted from her hand.

He hits her once, shouting into her face; "worthless" follows her as she runs. Away. Out the house, feet thudding fast down to the street corner where she stops.

She looks around, with no idea where to go next.


	25. [G] Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Fix-it of Sorts, coming home

Noah beats Sarah to Vanessa by barely a second, thundering down the path to Rhona's car like a schoolkid. Sarah sneaks into the middle of the hug somehow anyway.

Rhona catches her eye, checking for a reaction, but she's stuck to the spot, tea-towel in hand, watching Vanessa smiling over a tangle of teenage arms.

She's still standing there as Vanessa makes her way up the path. Her head's full of a thousand things she wants to say, but there's this flimmin lump in her throat, an all she can squeak out as she hugs her close is, "You're back."

**Author's Note:**

> 'Ngā Waeroa' is Te Reo Māori and translates into English as 'The Mosquitoes'.


End file.
